ladyluck

A set of Swedish averages: http://www.sportowefakty.pl/img/tmp/stat/statelitserien2010.htm

It says earlier in this very thread that Harris has a higher average in Sweden than Nicholls. I'd say the Polish league is stronger than the Swedish league, if for no other reason than the quantity of Polish riders knocking around in both leagues. They're bound to give their best efforts to the Polish league.

The 1977 averages would include bonus points, while currently the GSAs do not. In the old thirteen heat format the two respective No 1s were only programmed to meet once in a meeting. That was Ht 1, although, of course, they could subsequently meet if one or the other took a Tactical Substitute ride in a particular heat. However, more often than not, a team manage would hold his top rider's Tactical Substitute outing until Ht 8. There was no "nominated riders" heat. The biggest change between then and now is, of course, the mammoth changes wrought by the European Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ole Olsen would've been the dominant Dane, with the Gundersen-Nielsen era on the verge of dawning. Scott Autrey would be there for the States, but the Penhall era would be just about to start. The Australians weren't even that good, with only Phil Crump really a heavy hitter. This was still the Mauger era. There'd have been a few Poles kicking about, but they could hardly compete with their Western counterparts due to the heavy and dulling hand of the Communist dictatorship. It was a different world.

As did Swindon and Eastbourne last Thursday. Why would Torun agree to Wednesday in the knowledge they'd be missing Holder? Roman Krzysztof Karkosik has VERY deep pockets.

I wonder which Elite League meetings will bite the dust this week? Wroclaw are surely going to ask to race on Wednesday. Think it'll all come down to the commissioner again.

I'd say that some riders above are in the wrong generations. Marvyn Cox and Andy Smith were certainly before Martin Dugard who started in the same season as Gary Havelock. I'd also put David Norris in the generation before, as he started racing before Chris Louis, although I think Louis might've been a "late starter" in the sport. Still, any post that mentions the wonderful Steve Schofield can't be all bad. Great little rider. A couple of riders missing from that generation would be Andy Galvin and Andrew Silver, who may not have achieved as much as they could've done, but were still a whole lot better than what we see now, Interestingly, Havelock and Dugard had their first season in 1985 and many pundits opined that the best British prospect from that season was the long-forgotten Ali Stevens.

Correct, except on occasions when two heat leaders ride together.

The World Under-21 final was there last season, so Woffinden definitely has. The stadium has also held other FIM events, such as GP qualifiers, so perhaps the likes of Lindgren have been there. I'm not so sure about the top riders.

I noticed yesterday on sportowefakty.pl that Roman Krzysztof Karkosik, the billionaire behind Torun, seems to have issued some form of ultimatum, presumably to his riders. Torun have been a major disappointment this season, with several of their riders not producing the expected performances. Little Wieslaw Jagus, for example, hasn't been his usual self and nor really have Hans Andersen or Chris Holder. The return of Andersen, after a season away at Gdansk, should really have made Torun, second in the Ekstraliga last season, stronger. They've been much weaker, if anything.

With the SGP Challenge Final safely out of the way we can now concentrate on the final four GPs of a very enjoyable season, starting with the Croatian GP in Gorican this coming Saturday. The world championship is still "up for grabs", as are ever-important places in the top eight. The last GP in Malilla saw Tomasz Gollob take the lead in the race for the title from his fellow countryman Jaroslaw Hampel. Gollob also increased his lead over Jason Crump, lying third in the title race, even though Crump was second in Malilla and Gollob third. The world title race now seems to be a straight contest between those three, with Gollob holding the "whip hand". Gorican provides Gollob with an opportunity to really stamp his authority on the world championship, while at the same time provides Hampel and Crump with an opportunity to ramp up the pressure on Gollob. All three will be looking for good shows at the first ever Croatian GP. If it's unusually tight at the top, it's predictably tight in the race for a place in the top eight. Andreas Jonsson currently sits in eighth place on 55 points, a single point ahead of Fredrik Lindgren, with Greg Hancock a point behind him and Chris Harris a couple of points adrift of Hancock. Of those four, Fredrik Lindgren is sure of a place in 2011, having qualified from Vojens, but it's "squeaky bottom" time for the other three. Andreas Jonsson started the season in reasonable style, but after a couple of high-scoring GPs where he failed in the semi-finals amid tough and uncompromising riding from Gollob and Crump, his season has been in freefall. Only the travails of Nicki Pedersen at Malilla see Jonsson in the top eight. He desperately needs a good performance in Gorican to steady the ship, but you have to question whether he has what it takes to do so. He's never really seemed to perform well in the crisis situation and generally falls well short. Lindgren can rest easy. The pressure is off. Will that see him start to really perform in the GPs? We'll have to wait and see, I suppose. He has every chance of making the top eight if he maintains his concentration, but Hancock did well in Malilla and if he can keep that up, he's in with a great shout of overtaking the two Swedes and confirming his 2011 place (Hancock is also very good at Bydgoszcz, host track for the final GP). As for Chris Harris, I just can't see it. Can you? Nice guy, perhaps, but always likely to throw up a dismal ride or two, leaving his with poor gate picks on the rare occasions he manages to make the semi-finals. The pure and simple truth of the matter is that he's not up to the challenge. As for the rest, well there's not much Kenneth Bjerre and Chris Holder to race for. They look perfectly secure for 2011. Rune Holta could yet pressure the top three for a podium place, while Hans Andersen needs to keep scoring well or he could be dragged into the top eight dogfight. Nicki Pedersen doesn't look good for the top eight, but could do with a return to form and will be desperate to salvage something from an awful season. Magnus Zetterstrom, who hasn't been disgraced in the GPs, will be looking to bow out with his dignity in tact. Davey Watt should be looking forward to having another GP spin, while Tai Woffinden should perhaps be reflecting on a silly decision to accept a nomination. Not much for the "wild card" Jurica Pavlic to race for. The way things are looking for next season, he has no chance of impressing enough to gain a nomination, although a win might make things even more complicated than they already are for BSI when it comes to nominations. Hopefully a good GP awaits.

I have been convinced by the posts of ghostwalker and henryw that the Polish portals had it wrong and the correct transliteration is Laguta. As to your second point, I would remind you that Scott Nicholls on one occasion missed an Eastbourne fixture to ride for his Polish club and subsequently decided to exit the British domestic scene in favour of Poland, Sweden and the GPs. Lee Richardson has often mused on taking a similar stance (only to complain bitterly on the occasion it looked like British promoters were going to leave him on the sidelines), while Lewis Bridge seems to talk constantly of making a big impression in Poland. It is Poland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany that are developing the riders you are talking about, so why should they give priority to British speedway, especially when they see their comrades dumped at the first opportunity if they aren't working out? For every Kevin Wolbert, there is a Max Dilger dumped by the wayside.

Didn't Marvyn Cox, Simon Wigg and Andy Smith have nationality changes? Since Martin Dugard's night of glory in Coventry, Great Britain has only claimed one GP win. It's a rather dreadful statistic. All those charity nominations have simply held British riders back. Being "Britain's best" has been enough to get into the GPs, no matter how mediocre the aggregate of British talent has been. Other riders who have paid the price of their GP failure have come back stronger in the long run. Hampel this year, for example, and Andersen and Holta before him. The other thing to note about the "early days" of the GPs was the number of Americans, with Ermolenko finishing the first season of GPs third and then, of course, Billy Hamill and Greg Hancock winning in 1996 and 1997. Once Ermolenko and then Hamill fell by the wayside Hancock has ploughed a lone furrow.

One of the biggest problems is the assessed averages, which seem to get progressively lower, especially at Premier League level. Chris Holder came in on an assessed average of seven or eight, but what would it be now? Three or four? As I recall Berwick's three Czechs came in on assessed averages of nine and now they'd be assessed at seven, perhaps even lower, given that the Czech Republic league isn't one of the "major leagues". It's all about getting the best for a given team in a given season and to hell with the sport as a whole. All the promoters (and, to be entirely fair, a large proportion of their fan base) are looking to get the next hot prospect from wherever on a false assessed average. The Coventry fans are, for the most part, delighted that Przemyslaw Pawlicki isn't going to get a proper average this season. As far as they are concerned, Pawlicki, one of the brightest prospects in Poland, on a low assessed average for next season is all to the good. On the flip side of this, Artem Laguta suddenly becomes the most unwanted rider in British speedway, since his elevation to the GPs means that his assessed average goes from four or five to eight, just from the result of a single meeting. This meeting. The same happened with Emil Sayfutdinov, whose assessed average went from four or five to eight as a result of a decision made by BSI. It had nothing to do with a single performance on a speedway track. Everyone was looking at Sayfutdinov before that decision; interest dried up after it (although it was clear Sayfutdinov wasn't that keen on trying his hand in the UK). Young riders are being developed by other nations and then being picked up by British promoters hoping to get a good rider on a falsely low average.

To be fair, if you look back into the history of Polish speedway you find a lot of familiar names. A lot of the current Polish riders are carrying on a family tradition.

The worry has to be that BSI stick with Woffinden and he subsequently gets caught in the same spiral of failure that captured Nicholls and Harris. Nicholls was a rider with enormous promise, but continual nominations after failure led to a terrible waste of that promise. You get sucked into a delusion. Doing nothing much gets you back into the GPs year after year, so you do nothing very much. As I said earlier, contrast a Harris or a Nicholls with Rune Holta. Even Kelvin Tatum finally worked that one out, as he noted during the meeting on Monday. Harris has never qualified because he's never needed to qualify.

I wouldn't. To drop Woffinden after this season would be an admission from BSI that they made a huge mistake in nominating him for this season and they don't take easily to that sort of thing. In view of this, I'd say that Woffinden is ahead of Harris and Nicholls. The only problem is that strange condition known as "second season syndrome".

It would be quite an achievement to do worse than Woffinden.

His "maybe next year" comment after his engine failure at Cardiff didn't suggest retirement plans. Anyway, Gollob's in the form of his life, riding as well as he did a decade ago and what else can he really do?

It happened, sort of, in 2006. Andersen was fifth in the GPs and qualified via the GP Challenge at Vetlanda. However, Andersen didn't start the 2006 season as a GPer. He entered the fray as a "wild card" in Vojens and won the GP. He subsequently took over from the retiring Tony Rickardsson for the remainder of the season (although I think one more appearance was technically as a "wild card", with Ryan Sullivan taking Rickardsson's place). Andersen's GP challenge qualification was given priority and the ninth placed rider in the GPs, Jaroslaw Hampel, was sort of credited with eighth place, although Andersen was allowed the No 5 race jacket in the GPs. So, I guess what happens depends on what "spin" BSI can place on it.

I think Hancock's experience will see him top eight and with no need of a nomination. Jonsson, on the other hand, seems hopelessly out of touch these days and could very easily be left looking for a nomination. It would be hard, but not impossible, for BSI to deny Jonsson a nomination, while giving Harris a fifth one.

Who, realistically, is better than Kolodziej? You can't possibly say that a British rider should be nominated ahead of him. They (Harris and Stead) coped with the pressure situation even worse than he did, while Woffinden couldn't even make it to Vojens. The pressure of the semi-final was too much for him to take. There is no chance of Sayfutdinov missing out on the nominations. He won three GPs last season and made one final this season. He's only completed two GPs, so that's a decent return. Think about it. He's only completed two GPs and yet is still above Woffinden in the standings.

Congratulations to Artem Laguta on his win and to Antonio Lindback and Fredrik Lindgren on clinching their places in the 2011 circus. All this talk of Lindgren making the top eight ignores that the best thing for the Swedes would be if Lindgren and Jonsson can manufactuer a situation where Jonsson gets eighth place. As things stand, Jonsson is in a bit of a tricky situation. Personally, I think if Hancock can continue his form from Malilla, then the American will make it into the top eight, while Jonsson seems hopelessly lost at the minute. Dreadful shame for Janusz Kolodziej, who now stands virtually no chance of being a GPer next season. He now ranks below Harris, Woffinden and probably every other British rider when it comes to nominations. It's not right. It's not proper.

Race-off. Shame for Kolodziej, but that's the way it goes. If he doesn't make it, his chances of a nomination are zero as there will already be three Poles GPing next season. It's a disgrace, in all honesty. Why is he less deserving of a nomination than the hapless Harris?

Makes no difference. If they finish even it goes to a race-off. Countback only matters in the GPs.

Looking good for Kolodziej and Lindback, while Lindgren seems handily placed, alongside Artem Laguta. If Lindgren and Lindback make it, there'll be enormous pressure on Andreas Jonsson to hold onto that eighth place in the GP standings. If Artem Laguta shocks the world, pressure would be on Jonsson and Lindgren to claim a place in the top eight. One of them will probably be around next year, but both? I'm not so sure about that.